I have to admit that I am a passionate person of the wine culture. In my thirties I have never missed any vintage. When the date is coming we feel a strange sensation of nervousness because of the event, but we also feel a moderate patience to wait for this important moment to happen, which is the beginning of the vintage for one more year.

In spite of this vocation for the vines in my family, anybody dared to make something more. Step by step, as I was growing up, I started feeling an unstoppable restlessness to finish a work that I always found incomplete Just after finishing my studies, which were always shared with my land work, I started to consider the idea of making wine. .

With a little of money that I had saved and the inestimable help of my father, my loyal partner, I bought a piece of land in the property “ Cerro Encinas”. It was a vineyard more than 30 years ago. In 1998 I started to plant again in the old style the first 4700 vines by making holes of 40 cm depth wit a hoe.

One year later I grafted it myself (a graft of double fissure and a vine shoot with two buds) in the different grape varieties that I chose, such as tempranillo,  monastrell and syrah.  To get these different grafts I had to go to other regions in Spain like Cuenca for the Tempranillo variety and Murcia for the Monastrell. I contacted before some kind vine growers who supplied me the plants. The syrah vine shoots were collected from an experimentation land in Montilla.

It was a great success because only 4 plants were lost from a total of 4700.  So I became the first vine grower who had planted red wine varieties in the whole region of Córdoba and one of the firsts to do it in Andalucía. That is why I got the Award to the “Vine Grower of the Year” in 1999.

I have the feeling that people started to think that I was a bit crazy and I was indeed, because I wanted to demonstrate what for some people was unacceptable at that moment: red wine grapes in a land of full-bodied wines.

In 1999 I made my first wine from the grapes produced by the grafts. I did it in a completely handmade way:  I sifted the grapes, fermented the wine in barrel and pressed it with an old press that somebody lent to me.  In the end I got 70 bottles.  I still keep 5 of them like a memory and they are for me the biggest treasure of my winery.  .

In 2000 I made 300 more bottles in the same way and I have to say that I was surprised with the results. In spite of its youth, the wine showed me a big quality.  It was then when the dream of MARENAS had a meaning and came true. 

Also in 2000 I planted 4000 syrah and 400 cabernet sauvignon. I did one more time what people did not expect by planting vines in June. This time they were grafted and ready in little plant pots to be planted immediately with green buds of 15 cms.

It was an interesting experience. Even if I had to fight against rabbits and hares, as they did not eat them, the result was successful in the end.

MARENAS, registered mark.

After thinking a lot about the name of my wine, I decided to call it “MARENAS”. The name comes from an old property called Camarena in Doña Mencía, which is a village placed at the centre of the Denomination of Origin  Montilla-Moriles.

It seems that in this property some red wine grapes were cultivated before the native white grapes Pedro Jiménez.   I tried to make the name on my own and registered the mark as Marenas.

One of the things that I have learned is that the success or the failure of a good wine depends a lot on the work made in the vineyard. Only if we take care of it we can achieve our objectives.  With my respect for the environment and without losing the good customs from the past I try to improve every day to offer you the best food that my land can give.

2001 was one of the more difficult years because I made a big bet: to launch my first bottles into the market. After asking to many banks, I finally got one that lent me 2 millions of our old pesetas (12.000 €). With this money I bought my first tanks, some machinery and a press that arrived on the 9th of August to my small winery. It was an old small house in the country where we kept the farming implements. In around 40 m² I settled up my winery. On the 10^th of August I quickly started the vintage.

I remember how nervous and excited I felt when the grapes finally came inside the tanks. I also remember a little accident that I had while I was cleaning, at around 1.00 h in the morning:  I got a bump on my head, went to the hospital and the wound needed 10 stitches without anaesthesia…. After that I came back to finish cleaning what I started because another working day was coming soon

The truth is that it was very exciting to make my first wine.  By the end of 2002 I launched it to the market. In spite of the strangeness to launch an Andalusian red wine, it had a great success.  I decided to dedicate my third harvest to my niece Cristina because she was born in that same year, so I got the 2001 Cristina III Harvest.

In the following years I have been still learning and enjoying the beautiful world of the vine growing, getting new harvests such as: 

-  2002 “Semper Fidelis” IV Harvest,

- 2003 “Alianzas” V Harvest,

- 2004 “Alvaro” VI Harvest, which has been dedicated to my nephew and godson.

I hope to launch soon the Harvest number VII that will have the name of my daughter LUCÍA to whom I will also dedicate all my life.  <BR><BR>The vines ripen every year so every harvest is unique. Every one of my wines holds a small story of vines wines and lives.

JOSÉ MIGUEL MÁRQUEZ.

AUTHOR.